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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Bitten After Dark 6 and Bitten 2 Updates!

Just a friendly reminder that Bitten After Dark 6 is now available for download on Amazon.com.IMPORTANT UPDATEAs I was editing the After Dark stories and compiling them into a novel format, I realized that the story I told was more or less what I had in mind for BITTEN 2: Land of the Rising dead.I have always intended the second novel to be less of a sequel and more of a stand alone story set in the same universe. As such, Bitten After Dark will BECOME Bitten 2: Land of the Rising Dead.Literature, like any art, is constantly evolving--hopeful to the end goal of the artist's vision. As I thought about what I wanted Bitten 2 to be about, it was essentially the story I told in the After Dark series.That said, the novel version which collects all of the 'After Dark' stories will be broken into 22 chapters, instead of the original 6. I found that the 30 page chapters was just too long--and that breaking them up really increases the flow of the story and makes the reader feel that they are making substantial progress with the book. It moves along more briskly when you can keep track of the pace.As it is a much different novel, a love story instead of a survival horror, the format is a little different this time around. There are only five main characters in the entire story instead of the 50 or so in the original BITTEN novel.That's a huge change right there, but the story isn't any less captivating. In fact, I think the focus on just a few survivors really makes the characters come out more, since we spend so much personal time with them.As a love story, it has a different tone. But at the same time it fleshes out the Bitten mythos.What I initially began as Bitten 2, which I am 12 chapters into as of this writing, will become Bitten 3: Kingdom of the Living Dead. Bitten 3 effectively combines the surviving members of Bitten 1 and Bitten 2 together into an epic finally. With a few surprises thrown in. Bitten 3 is similar to the first book in that it's got plenty of characters and it jumps between individual stories instead of focusing on just a handful of main characters like Bitten 2. The reason I went a different direction with Bitten 2 was to see if I could tell a different type of story. Also, I didn't want it to suffer from second novel syndrome, where the second part of a trilogy is always less well received It's actually an entirely different story with a different cast of characters within a different genre. It will be book ended by two similar style tales which makes this trilogy truly unique. Whether or not this little writing experiment will be successful is a different matter entirely. The fate of the Bitten series lies entirely in the hands of the Bitten fans and zombie/horror aficionados. Additionally, Bitten 2: Land of the Rising Dead will have some additional chapters not available in the digital downloads of the After Dark series. I had to play around with the format a bit to make it tie back into the universe yet maintain it's stand alone appeal.Bitten 2: Land of the Rising Dead will be available sometime in February if all goes to schedule.